Sketching a Masterpiece

Landscape Software Makes Designing Easy

There’s an old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” So when you’re creating a design for a landscape, you want your thousand words to be good ones. Well, with computer design software, it’s easier than ever to compose your landscape.

Forget about the pens, the paper, and having to go to a blueprint shop. Now, all you need to make a stunning design, plans, and an estimate, is a laptop—or a tablet—a software program, and your imagination.

Going from digital photo to design photo

The computer age has brought about many changes, as far as what people can do with photographs. Probably the best-known program that has made it possible
to add or remove things from a picture is Photoshop. It can make a photo
appear like it is forty years old, or add a person into the picture, or
it can change backgrounds; it can do a myriad of things. Then, you can
print or send that image, and no one knows that it isn’t an original
image.

Landscape
design software has capitalized on this ability with photo imaging. If
you were called in to see a potential client, or a client that you had
worked for in the past, and they want to renovate their landscape, now
you can take a digital image of the client’s house—front, back and
sides—go back to your office or truck, and start the work right there.

To
begin a design, download a photo of the property. Your client would
probably like to keep the grown trees surrounding the property, but
would like to remove the overgrown shrubs and turf that make it look
like it was landscaped 30 years ago. You want to bring it up to date.

Most
programs offer collections of images, accessories and plant material
that allow you to put together a visual design of the new landscape in
no time at all. All you have to do is simply drop and drag flowers,
grass, mulch, hardscapes, and various other elements into your design,
and you can create a digital image of what the house might look like.

This
also means that there’s no need to spend time explaining what each of
the plants will look like. The client can just take a look at the image,
and have a clear sense of the finished product. And when your clients
get a sense of what their new landscape is going to look like, that’s
when they’ll get excited.

Editing and adding on

Beforehand,
discuss with your clients what they would like to see and what they
don’t. based on that meeting, you begin to design. but what happens when
you show them the landscaped picture and they don’t like it?

Don’t
sweat the details; it’s easy to change. In fact, psychologically it
would make sense to have some pieces in the design that would need
changing. When you start talking about additions you would like to bring
in, or when your clients see something they are not crazy about, it’s
easy to make it right.

In
the past, that would usually mean going back and redrawing from
scratch. but when you are using design software, changing elements of a
design becomes much less of a chore.

You
can change elements of a design very easily when working with a
computer image. If there is anything in the design that the client
doesn’t like, or if there’s another option you’d like to consider, all
it takes is a few clicks (or a few swipes of the finger, if you’re on a
tablet) and you can display what the landscape will look like with the
modifications.

This
gives you, as a contractor, a big advantage. You can create exactly what
a client wants. This will save you from costly problems due to
miscommunication down the road.

“If
you put in purple flowers, and they don’t like purple flowers, well,
then you can address that up front,” says David Sloan, sales and
marketing director for Drafix Software, Inc., based in Kansas City,
Missouri. “You not only find out what they like—but more importantly,
what they don’t like—before you start digging holes in the ground. You
want them hands-on enough to know just what they want.”

“A
client can say, ‘I like this, but let’s change this over here. I’d like
to put the fireplace over here and I’d like to add a spa over there.’
In the old days, with a pen and ink drawing, you’d have to erase
everything, or you’d have to redraw,” says Steve Secondo, owner of Steve
Secondo designs in Santa Ana, California. “With the computer, you can
easily make lines and features disappear. It makes changes and revisions
easier, and makes it simple to put an image together that can be shared
with the clients.”

Not
only is it easy to factor in the clients’ input, but because they are
right there with you, they feel involved in the design itself. Here is
where the psychology of this comes into play. They can see a finished
image of a design, and think to themselves, “I helped design that. This
is just what I want, and I’m looking forward to seeing this when it’s done.”

Working with lights

If
your company also does landscape lighting, guess what? You can design
the landscape and put in the lights where they belong as well. It’s
quick and easy to create a lighting design for your clients’ needs that
can be clearly shown to them.

Even
better is the fact that the software can show your clients what the
landscape will look like at night. There’s no need for them to imagine
what it might look like at night; you can show them what it will look
like, right in front of their eyes! Remember that old saying, “A picture
is worth a thousand words?”

Simple to work with

But
what about the contractor who doesn’t have the desire to design? What
can he do with this? Well, contractors who don’t have the vision or the
desire to design usually outsource this work to professional designers.

Fortunately
for us all, technology keeps getting easier to use, even for
technophobes. Today, you can do a design with your laptop or your tablet,
right on the site, while meeting with the client. With a little
imagination, using design software could not only be enjoyable, it can
save money, too.

It
also saves you the time wasted on repetition. One big annoyance with
drawing a design by hand is the need to continuously pencil in the same
plants over and over again to fill in a bed. Or having to sketch flowers
in a front yard and try to make each one appear unique. but with a
collection of images to work from, putting together a row of plants or
adding a pool in the backyard is a piece of cake.

“I
was doing it by hand previously, and I went to software to increase
productivity,” says Patrick Duchene, owner of Duchene Design Solutions,
based in Branchburg, New Jersey. “Your accuracy greatly improves, and
now, thanks to the software, I’m probably doing about three to four
times the work. Also, your presentation is superior to anything you do
by hand, in my opinion.”

“If
you can turn a project around quicker, people are a lot more inclined
to buy and to sign on the dotted line, because you’ve delivered
something in a timely and professional manner. It sets a precedent for
later on, for when you do a project and you say you’re going to finish
it on time,” explained Duchene.

There’s
also a far greater clarity as to what’s actually in the design. unless
your client happens to also be a contractor or designer, odds are he
isn’t going to know how to interpret a blueprint. but with a colorful
image of his home, there’s nothing to interpret. When you insert a tree
from the image library, it will look like a real tree when someone other
than a designer looks at it.

“This
software is a very big benefit to the client,” said Joe Salemi,
marketing manager for dynaSCAPE Software, Burlington, Ontario, Canada.
“They instantly have much better clarity as to what they are getting.”

design
software allows the contractor to work with his clients better, so that
they can find out precisely what they want. The clients have a better
grasp of what the finished product is going to look like. This leads to
less hassle for you, happier clients and fewer problems down the road.

“When
I add water, it looks like real water. When I add in trees, they look
like real trees,” says Secondo. “The clients understand that what
they’re looking at are trees. This is all about communicating an idea,
visually, in two dimensions.”

Features of the system:

Transferring

Computers
are valued for a lot of reasons. for one thing, they make transferring
ideas and projects much easier. A design created on a computer can be
sent from person to person with ease. A design developed online can be
put into a Pdf, and can then be sent out anywhere you want. Or, you
could print out that Pdf and hand it over to a client, sothey can have a picture of what their future project will be like; a nice reminder of what their yard will look like.

It
also means that you can send your thoughts and ideas to clients even
when they’re not in town. They can be away but you can still keep them
informed of what is happening. The software has completely
revolutionized how you can communicate with your customers.

More perspectives, more possibilities

But
your ways of wowing the customer don’t end there. Remember, people
don’t look at a landscape from just one perspective the whole time.
They’re going to walk out into the middle of it, or look at it from the
sides. So wouldn’t it be smart to have your design display what it will
look like from these angles as well?

If
you really want to wow them, turn that photo imaging design into a full
3d image. That way, you can allow the client to see their potential
landscape from a variety of angles and directions. Let them see it from
the corner of the property, or let them stroll through it from one end
to the other, or even let them see what it looks like as they are
walking out from the house onto the landscape. These multi-angled views
give buyers a better sense of what the finished product will look like.

Creating a detailed map

But
there are times where you need that detailed, 2d site plan. When you
need a detailed model of what a design may look like, fear not, because
landscape software designers have your back here, too.

Most
of the big names offer easy-to-use computer-aided design (CAd) software.
CAd allows you to easily create a 2d site plan that accurately
represents the installation of plantings, sprinkler systems, and
hardscapes. The result is an image of the landscape that has color, but
also contains details on what’s going in the design.

Better measurements and better estimates

There
is something else that computers can do that make a contractor’s life
easier: they can make calculations far faster than any human can. When
operating with design software, there can be no doubt that a measurement
of a backyard can be spot on, saving you the hassle of measuring by
hand. And as a result, the amount of material that you are going to need
is also going to be right for the job.

“I
don’t do anything without the software,” says Cassie James, chief
designer for James Landscaping in Grapevine, Texas. “It makes it
possible for me to create a bid without guessing at the square footage.
The hedge lines are always accurate; the placement of plants is always
correct. It just decreases all the time and effort. So I never go to a
project without it.”

When the time comes, you can also generate blueprints, and then you can create a take-off sheet.

The
software comes in just as handy for that. Many programs offer built-in
bidding capabilities that can help you create an estimate that is ready
to print out.

What
this means for a contractor is that he can bring everything he has
worked on together into a professional-looking sales presentation, with a
cover sheet, an estimate, and a list of materials that will be used.
You can even give information about the plants you’ll be using. All that
makes you look like the landscape professional that you are.

Now,
it is easier than ever for landscape contractors to create their own
landscape designs. businesses that are already making use of designing
with software have found that it saves them time, it saves hassles and
provides an even more professional approach to the client.